7 ms·

I had the interesting experience of returning to two of Iain M Banks's novels, both of which I had read in my late 20s (20 years ago). Feersum Endjinn was fun b

by m0nty 8y ago

I had the interesting experience of returning to two of Iain M Banks's novels, both of which I had read in my late 20s (20 years ago). Feersum Endjinn was fun but not at all profound: I had found it to be very thought-provoking the first time around. In fact, it was the first Banks book I read and it had me hooked. Consider Phlebas I had read and enjoyed, but it seemed flat, uninspired and uninteresting on second reading. I abandoned it after several chapters. I hardly ever abandon books but have done so more often recently - encroaching age does lead to impatience in some things. I'm not sure how I would feel returning to Use of Weapons and The Wasp Factory, both of which I found shocking and profound the first time around. So the point of this is, your opinion of something might change, or maybe it's just that storytelling is like a magic trick which requires the wholehearted participation of writer and reader to be successful. If you're not interested, you should quit and find something else to do. I'm the same with television - cannot watch The Wire too many times, cannot watch most other things even once.

monochromatic 8y ago
I actually gave up on Banks’s The Player of Games a couple of days ago. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance, but I just couldn’t get interested.
- AndrewStephens 8y ago
  The Player of Games is sort of Banks-lite. If you didn't like that then you are not going to get into his other stuff. Personally I like his novel but I can understand why others don't - he has a certain style and way of constructing plots that either grabs you of leaves you bored. There are certainly many books that I struggled through and wished I didn't, but there are others that I thought I was going to hate long past the 50 page mark that brought me around in the end. But 50 pages is enough to know that a book is _terrible_.
- sulam 8y ago
  Player of Games is the book I recommend to people to know if they'll like all of his books. It's kind of a set piece for all of them. So I can say with some confidence that you probably won't like many of his books.
  - monochromatic 8y ago
    I thought Consider Phlebas was pretty good. Maybe I should give this one more of a chance.
    - pavel_lishin 8y ago
      I think Consider Phlebas was more of a generic action/adventure yarn, whereas Player of Games is a good tour of The Culture (by contrasting it with Azad). I read Consider Phlebas first and enjoyed the hell out of it, but definitely think that Player of Games is, in 90% of situations, is the "correct" introduction novel.
      - discardable_dan 8y ago
        I couldn't get into Consider Phlebas---I found the 'protagonist' too deeply flawed and unlikable. Is it likely I'll enjoy his other work in light of this?
        pavel_lishin 8y ago
        If your only issue was the unlikeable "antihero" protagonist, then maybe? Most of his characters tend to be, at best, morally ambiguous. I know I said so in the previous comment, but Player of Games isn't too bad - the protagonist isn't really a good guy, but he's also not an amoral killer-for-hire. Excession might be a better bet, although a lot of the novel basically consists of reading emails between characters. I'm pretty sure you'd hate Use of Weapons.
snowwrestler 8y ago
I loved Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton when I first read it as a teenager. Recognizing how far my taste has developed since then, I recently re-read it... and found it to be a shrill anti-science screed wrapped in an action movie script.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  Novels are written to satisfy the social milieu of the time in which it's written. Society's moved on since Jurassic Park, why would it still be relevant?
  - andromaton 8y ago
    Obligatory Shakespeare wants to talk to you.
    - vinceguidry 8y ago
      Shakespeare didn't write novels, he wrote plays and poetry. Edit: I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the HN crowd doesn't care to distinguish between types of creative media.
      - mmartinson 8y ago
        sick burn
      - kej 8y ago
        I think I agree with you that the context of an artistic work is a valuable lens through which to view it, but there are definitely timeless works of art, too. Don Quixote or most of Dickens come to mind.
        vinceguidry 8y ago
        Sure. But novels specifically require a greater-than-usual time investment, so they will appeal to a more niche crowd than a play, it's modern analogue, the movie, or a poem. And the length practically requires filler. Most anyone aiming at timelessness avoids the novel format, which is far more geared towards time-killing entertainment. That doesn't mean you can't find timeless novels, but they're fairly rare. We remember Jane Austen, but not the endless legion of contemporaries inhabiting the same space she did. Your examples themselves are instructive. Don Quixote was one of the very first novels ever written. Of course it's amazing. Dickens' novels were originally serialized in magazines, not published in full. It's a testament to his genius that they're as timeless as they are. His seminal work, A Christmas Carol was published in full, but it was a novella, not a novel. I remember reading Anna Karenina and thinking the pacing could have been a lot tighter. The novel has almost from the beginning been pop fare, more of a business concern than an artistic one.
potta_coffee 8y ago
I made it about 2/3 of the way through Wasp Factory, first book I've tried by this author. I just couldn't find a reason to keep going, the book didn't do it for me. I think I quit shortly after he killed the little girl by tying her to a kite and letting her go over the ocean - too absurd for me I guess.
- tsmarsh 8y ago
  Its a short book with a delicious twist at the end. I think the pay off was somewhere in the last 10% of the book.
- jcoffland 8y ago
  Dude, major spoiler!
  - potta_coffee 8y ago
    I don't understand the pique, the thread is not about this book, but about dropping bad books. I found this one particularly bad. Regardless, the minor plot point I gave away didn't seem very important to the story, in fact it was so stupid that I didn't finish the book. Typically if I'm interested in a book, I'll avoid conversations about it on the internet, "spoilers" are guaranteed to occur in any meaningful conversation about anything. Despite that, I'll edit my original comment with a spoiler warning. Edit: Too late to edit...
Osmium 8y ago
> Consider Phlebas I had read and enjoyed, but it seemed flat, uninspired and uninteresting on second reading. For what it's worth, Consider Phlebas was my introduction to Banks: I found it ok. Something like an above-average sci-fi action movie. I enjoyed reading it, and it left an impression, but not a spectacular one. However, I stuck with Banks, and by the time I got to Use of Weapons ... that was a book that really did floor me. I think Banks is really something special. Enlightening, maybe. Even if he can be uneven at times, I still haven't read anyone else quite like him. Perhaps if I read it again, the magic wouldn't work a second time, I don't know, but it sure did work the first time.
- cryoshon 8y ago
  enlightening is the right word. it isn't that his characters are interesting. they're multi dimensional but still mostly without an engaging personality (with the exception of the doctor from inversions and cheradenine zakalwe from use of weapons). it isn't that the universe is very interesting. it's a basic space opera setup with a few quirks like sublimation that are mysterious but ultimately irrelevant. likewise, the plots are fairly boring. group X clandestinely does Y because Z; the end result is typically a tiny nudge in favor of group X's agenda. but the ideology and technology of the Culture -- there's the entire value of the series. all of their technology is thought-provoking because it asks the question of what society should look like if such a technology could plausibly exist. likewise, the Culture's "system of government" is a great thought experiment on the best possible interpretation of anarchy. banks sets up plotlines to contrast the Culture against a number of other systems of government, and captures the failures of those very effectively across a huge swath of different contexts ranging from gender relations to art to pleasure to resource distribution. the Culture doesn't always get a favorable rating, either -- and so banks exposes the contradictions implied in societies. fascinatingly, banks captures the essence of the Culture in a way that few other writers can do with any concept of such complexity. i feel confident that nearly all readers of the books could re-create Culture society to a high level of accuracy if they were prompted. yet if you try to distill Culture society into a few paragraphs, it's really hard! so yeah, i read the books for the Culture. it's a shame banks died, i think he could have written a dozen more books in the series and delivered more great material.
cryoshon 8y ago
i only read consider phlebas after reading player of games as my introduction to banks. gotta say, consider phlebas didn't come off well at all. fairly flat, not really many interesting ideas or characters. kind of a generic space opera-punk story. use of weapons was a strong point, however. i love banks work, but if consider phlebas had been the first that i approached, it might have passed my 40 page test but i doubt i would have gone on to read the other culture books.
- peapicker 8y ago
  This was me. Now I think I’ll give Use and Player a chance again. Thanks!
civilitty 8y ago
...maybe it's just that storytelling is like a magic trick which requires the wholehearted participation of writer and reader to be successful. If you're not interested, you should quit and find something else to do. I'm the same with television - cannot watch The Wire too many times, cannot watch most other things even once. Wholeheartedly agree. I can't stand movies and most TV shows but there is a relatively small set of shows that I will binge rewatch at an interval of every 2-4 years. A few are the great ones like The Wire or the Star Treks that make me rethink my place in the universe as I get older, but when I say the rest out loud they all sound so... banal. And yet, I love rewatching them every time, especially when it's with friends or family - when they don't know what's going to happen and you get to experience that again vicariously. Arrested Development, Archer, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Moral Orel, Xavier Renegade Angel... stupid stuff like that. It's especially great today with so many shows surviving for 5-10 seasons. I'll watch one or two seasons that are available and come back years later to something that combines elements of nostalgia with brand new never before seen seasons. Edit: Also, to add, I have always been a voracious reader, especially of nonfiction. While I absorbed a lot of knowledge, I can't really remember any actual stories that I have read in my lifetime save for one. Some young adult book, House of the Scorpion, published in 2002 that was required reading for one of my kids so I read it to help them with their book report. For some reason, that book just resonated with me and it's still my favorite.

by m0nty 8y ago

monochromatic 8y ago

I actually gave up on Banks’s The Player of Games a couple of days ago. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance, but I just couldn’t get interested.

AndrewStephens 8y ago
The Player of Games is sort of Banks-lite. If you didn't like that then you are not going to get into his other stuff. Personally I like his novel but I can understand why others don't - he has a certain style and way of constructing plots that either grabs you of leaves you bored. There are certainly many books that I struggled through and wished I didn't, but there are others that I thought I was going to hate long past the 50 page mark that brought me around in the end. But 50 pages is enough to know that a book is _terrible_.
sulam 8y ago
Player of Games is the book I recommend to people to know if they'll like all of his books. It's kind of a set piece for all of them. So I can say with some confidence that you probably won't like many of his books.
- monochromatic 8y ago
  I thought Consider Phlebas was pretty good. Maybe I should give this one more of a chance.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    I think Consider Phlebas was more of a generic action/adventure yarn, whereas Player of Games is a good tour of The Culture (by contrasting it with Azad). I read Consider Phlebas first and enjoyed the hell out of it, but definitely think that Player of Games is, in 90% of situations, is the "correct" introduction novel.
    - discardable_dan 8y ago
      I couldn't get into Consider Phlebas---I found the 'protagonist' too deeply flawed and unlikable. Is it likely I'll enjoy his other work in light of this?
      - pavel_lishin 8y ago
        If your only issue was the unlikeable "antihero" protagonist, then maybe? Most of his characters tend to be, at best, morally ambiguous. I know I said so in the previous comment, but Player of Games isn't too bad - the protagonist isn't really a good guy, but he's also not an amoral killer-for-hire. Excession might be a better bet, although a lot of the novel basically consists of reading emails between characters. I'm pretty sure you'd hate Use of Weapons.

snowwrestler 8y ago

I loved Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton when I first read it as a teenager. Recognizing how far my taste has developed since then, I recently re-read it... and found it to be a shrill anti-science screed wrapped in an action movie script.

vinceguidry 8y ago
Novels are written to satisfy the social milieu of the time in which it's written. Society's moved on since Jurassic Park, why would it still be relevant?
- andromaton 8y ago
  Obligatory Shakespeare wants to talk to you.
  - vinceguidry 8y ago
    Shakespeare didn't write novels, he wrote plays and poetry. Edit: I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the HN crowd doesn't care to distinguish between types of creative media.
    - mmartinson 8y ago
      sick burn
    - kej 8y ago
      I think I agree with you that the context of an artistic work is a valuable lens through which to view it, but there are definitely timeless works of art, too. Don Quixote or most of Dickens come to mind.
      - vinceguidry 8y ago
        Sure. But novels specifically require a greater-than-usual time investment, so they will appeal to a more niche crowd than a play, it's modern analogue, the movie, or a poem. And the length practically requires filler. Most anyone aiming at timelessness avoids the novel format, which is far more geared towards time-killing entertainment. That doesn't mean you can't find timeless novels, but they're fairly rare. We remember Jane Austen, but not the endless legion of contemporaries inhabiting the same space she did. Your examples themselves are instructive. Don Quixote was one of the very first novels ever written. Of course it's amazing. Dickens' novels were originally serialized in magazines, not published in full. It's a testament to his genius that they're as timeless as they are. His seminal work, A Christmas Carol was published in full, but it was a novella, not a novel. I remember reading Anna Karenina and thinking the pacing could have been a lot tighter. The novel has almost from the beginning been pop fare, more of a business concern than an artistic one.

potta_coffee 8y ago

I made it about 2/3 of the way through Wasp Factory, first book I've tried by this author. I just couldn't find a reason to keep going, the book didn't do it for me. I think I quit shortly after he killed the little girl by tying her to a kite and letting her go over the ocean - too absurd for me I guess.

tsmarsh 8y ago
Its a short book with a delicious twist at the end. I think the pay off was somewhere in the last 10% of the book.
jcoffland 8y ago
Dude, major spoiler!
- potta_coffee 8y ago
  I don't understand the pique, the thread is not about this book, but about dropping bad books. I found this one particularly bad. Regardless, the minor plot point I gave away didn't seem very important to the story, in fact it was so stupid that I didn't finish the book. Typically if I'm interested in a book, I'll avoid conversations about it on the internet, "spoilers" are guaranteed to occur in any meaningful conversation about anything. Despite that, I'll edit my original comment with a spoiler warning. Edit: Too late to edit...

Osmium 8y ago

> Consider Phlebas I had read and enjoyed, but it seemed flat, uninspired and uninteresting on second reading. For what it's worth, Consider Phlebas was my introduction to Banks: I found it ok. Something like an above-average sci-fi action movie. I enjoyed reading it, and it left an impression, but not a spectacular one. However, I stuck with Banks, and by the time I got to Use of Weapons ... that was a book that really did floor me. I think Banks is really something special. Enlightening, maybe. Even if he can be uneven at times, I still haven't read anyone else quite like him. Perhaps if I read it again, the magic wouldn't work a second time, I don't know, but it sure did work the first time.

cryoshon 8y ago
enlightening is the right word. it isn't that his characters are interesting. they're multi dimensional but still mostly without an engaging personality (with the exception of the doctor from inversions and cheradenine zakalwe from use of weapons). it isn't that the universe is very interesting. it's a basic space opera setup with a few quirks like sublimation that are mysterious but ultimately irrelevant. likewise, the plots are fairly boring. group X clandestinely does Y because Z; the end result is typically a tiny nudge in favor of group X's agenda. but the ideology and technology of the Culture -- there's the entire value of the series. all of their technology is thought-provoking because it asks the question of what society should look like if such a technology could plausibly exist. likewise, the Culture's "system of government" is a great thought experiment on the best possible interpretation of anarchy. banks sets up plotlines to contrast the Culture against a number of other systems of government, and captures the failures of those very effectively across a huge swath of different contexts ranging from gender relations to art to pleasure to resource distribution. the Culture doesn't always get a favorable rating, either -- and so banks exposes the contradictions implied in societies. fascinatingly, banks captures the essence of the Culture in a way that few other writers can do with any concept of such complexity. i feel confident that nearly all readers of the books could re-create Culture society to a high level of accuracy if they were prompted. yet if you try to distill Culture society into a few paragraphs, it's really hard! so yeah, i read the books for the Culture. it's a shame banks died, i think he could have written a dozen more books in the series and delivered more great material.

cryoshon 8y ago

i only read consider phlebas after reading player of games as my introduction to banks. gotta say, consider phlebas didn't come off well at all. fairly flat, not really many interesting ideas or characters. kind of a generic space opera-punk story. use of weapons was a strong point, however. i love banks work, but if consider phlebas had been the first that i approached, it might have passed my 40 page test but i doubt i would have gone on to read the other culture books.

peapicker 8y ago
This was me. Now I think I’ll give Use and Player a chance again. Thanks!

civilitty 8y ago

...maybe it's just that storytelling is like a magic trick which requires the wholehearted participation of writer and reader to be successful. If you're not interested, you should quit and find something else to do. I'm the same with television - cannot watch The Wire too many times, cannot watch most other things even once. Wholeheartedly agree. I can't stand movies and most TV shows but there is a relatively small set of shows that I will binge rewatch at an interval of every 2-4 years. A few are the great ones like The Wire or the Star Treks that make me rethink my place in the universe as I get older, but when I say the rest out loud they all sound so... banal. And yet, I love rewatching them every time, especially when it's with friends or family - when they don't know what's going to happen and you get to experience that again vicariously. Arrested Development, Archer, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Moral Orel, Xavier Renegade Angel... stupid stuff like that. It's especially great today with so many shows surviving for 5-10 seasons. I'll watch one or two seasons that are available and come back years later to something that combines elements of nostalgia with brand new never before seen seasons. Edit: Also, to add, I have always been a voracious reader, especially of nonfiction. While I absorbed a lot of knowledge, I can't really remember any actual stories that I have read in my lifetime save for one. Some young adult book, House of the Scorpion, published in 2002 that was required reading for one of my kids so I read it to help them with their book report. For some reason, that book just resonated with me and it's still my favorite.